This unique portrait depicts the “Maharani” (Hindi for empress) Queen Victoria (r. 1837–1901), bare-breasted and cuddling Princess Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise under her mantle. It evokes both the Madonna and Child of Western culture and Yashodhra, the adoptive mother of the god Krishna, nursing her child—an image that can be traced back to first-century Hindu paintings.
The flatness of the queen’s forehead and her awkward three-quarter profile suggest that the Indian painter was grappling with Western concepts of volume and perspective. In Indian eyes Victoria’s daughter would be proof of continued lineage. We can only imagine how her dishabille, which symbolized fertility to Indians, might have affected the Victorian sense of propriety.